OIA "Growing Outdoor Participation... and Your Customer Base"
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This document summarizes a webinar about growing outdoor participation and customer engagement. The webinar discusses how engaging with customers through social media, reviews, videos and live chat can help businesses compete for customers' time and build relationships. It provides examples of using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and reviews effectively and encourages businesses to find unique ways to appeal to customers at all experience levels. The webinar aims to help outdoor retailers expand their customer base through digital outreach and engagement.
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OIA "Growing Outdoor Participation... and Your Customer Base"
- 1. Growing Participation WELCOME TO OUTDOOR UNIVERSITY® Growing Outdoor Participation… And Your Customer Base The Webinar will begin at 2:00 p.m. (Mountain Time)
- 2. Growing Participation WELCOME TO OUTDOOR UNIVERSITY® Growing Outdoor Participation… And Your Customer Base
- 4. Growing Participation Presenter Mark McKnight eCommerce & Marketing Director Rock/Creek
- 6. Growing Participation Chattanooga, TN 22 years in business 10+ years online Local focus, global reach Grassroots Outdoor Alliance Member
- 7. Growing Participation Growing Outdoor Participation and Your Customer Base Will Cover How to engage with your customers on their terms, through live chat, social media, video, events and traditional customer service. How to compete, not necessarily with the big box down the street, but with other priorities competing for your customers' time, attention and wallet. How to build lasting relationships with all levels of outdoor enthusiasts, from aspirational to expert.
- 9. Growing Participation Today, social media tools are part of the customer experience and marketing mix for most merchants where 5 out of 10 tools have a 50%+ usage penetration including: – Facebook Fan Page (86% of respondents) – Twitter Publishing (65%) – Customer Reviews (55%) – Blogs (55%) – Viral Videos (50%) e-tailing & PowerReviews survey of online merchants, 10-2009
- 11. Growing Participation Product Reviews Consumers trust reviews more than expert endorsements or the shop's own copy
- 12. Growing Participation Vibram Fivefingers is the perfect example- we didn't see it coming.
- 14. Growing Participation Engagement is more important than fan count.
- 16. Growing Participation Over 2300 fans General interest
- 17. Growing Participation Rock/Creek StumpJump 50k Up since Sept. 2009 9th year in '10 159 fans
- 18. Growing Participation "Promotions" tab Shows our most recent promotional email (most broad- reaching).
- 19. Growing Participation Over 10,000 fans Defaults to "What's New" tab featuring content like the Mountain Cup and Giving Greenbacks programs
- 20. Growing Participation Engagement is more important than fan count.
- 21. Growing Participation Outreach: Growing Participation
- 27. Growing Participation Video: Emerging Channel
- 38. Growing Participation What's going on with this twitter thing?
- 41. Growing Participation Review What do you have to talk about that makes your shop unique? Why should your customers care? Can you balance appeal, from aspirational to expert?
- 42. Growing Participation Resources rockcreek.com/facebook rockcreek.com/twitter rockcreek.com/vimeo rockcreek.com/youtube
- 43. Growing Participation Questions? Mark McKnight, MMcKnight@rockcreek.com 423.266.8200 xt1113
- 45. Growing Participation Join us for the next Outdoor University® Webinar Branching Out Without Losing Your Roots Presented by: Jennifer Mull, Backwoods Wednesday, June 9 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. (Mountain Time)
Editor's Notes
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- Mark McKnight\necommerce & marketing director\n\n6 years at Rock/Creek\nHampden-Sydney College in VA\n\nMarketing, branding focus\n\nLed rebranding effort and redesign of Web, currently doing so again (web not brand) \n\nLook out for an announcement on that very soon!\n\nPhoto: andrew kornylak\n
- Rock/Creek\n22 years\n11 years online\n\nFounded by Dawson Wheeler and Marvin Webb as Rock/Creek Outfitters and Canoeist Headquarters, now just known as Rock/Creek.\n
- Chattanooga, TN\n\nlocal focus, global reach\n\nGrassroots Outdoor Alliance member\n\nphoto of our newest, flagship store is LEED Gold, next to organic grocery\n
- How to engage with your customers on their terms, through live chat, social media, video, events and traditional customer service. \nHow to compete, not necessarily with the big box down the street, but with other priorities competing for your customers' time, attention and wallet.\n \nHow to build lasting relationships with all levels of outdoor enthusiasts, from aspirational to expert.\n
- So my user group should be outside all the time, right?\n\nWhy engage them online? Isn't that just encouraging things that we shouldn't be engaging with?\n
- An etailing & PowerReviews survey showed most merchants involved in social media, so your peers and your competitors are already participating in this space. \n\nChances are your customers are already talking about you online- you need to know what they're saying!\n\nAlso, your customers are already there- whether it's the rise of social media use because mobile devices have become ubiquitous and people would rather browse facebook on their phone than read the magazines in the doctor's office, or if it's just people daydreaming about being outside while they're at the office...\n\nOur retail data shows that no matter what employers would like to think, most people are purchasing during normal business hours. You need to be there.\n
- Google Retail blog\n\nThese tools are not only important if you're already selling online. \n\n34% of consumers in google retails' recent research researched online and then went to the store to purchase, and another 7% went back online after the purchase to research.\n\nOver 40% of your brick and mortar customers are consulting the Web during the purchase cycle.\n
- social media & engaging the audience is NOT just something teenagers do to waste time.\n\nit has a direct impact on the bottom line. \n\nproduct ratings are the simplest example of this.\n\nproducts with reviews convert at a higher rate and customers trust each other more than your copywriters.\n\n\n(up from 44 when I started this)\n
- Vibram is the perfect example- we didn't see this coming, but our customers showed us that this was a product they wanted, and they were evangelical about it.\n
- email from Meesh on whether this was the real deal or not?\n
- Leads us into the next point, that the quantity is not the key issue here- you want to have an eye on how engaged your audience is, and you want to reach out and actively engage them.\n
- most comments will be positive\n\ndon't delete negative comments- are you upfront? customers are watching to see how you handle issues. \n\ntransparency- we found out about it in a way that in the past you never would know- they would have just gone \n\ntwitter story- customer said "way to go r/c for taking care of the locals" and I saw it, we remedied the situation. \n\noften these customer service interactions end up generating positive feedback in the end, and  they can help upper management get a view into what's happening on the sales floor and correct it if needed.\n
- As your fan count grows be sensitive to what they respond to and what turns them off- you can watch unsubscribes as you post.\n
- Allows us to speak regularly with runners who have signed up, people who are interested, and we don't wear out our main R/C page with constant SJ updates.\n\nTAKEAWAY: You have to be relevant, so if you're getting too deep into one activity or event that you have coming up, move it off to a separate page. We didn't do this early enough... probably alienated some of the main list.\n\nSame as email.\n\n-engagement rate- quality score- pay attention to the stats and make adjustments as necessary.\n
- Where you can go with facebook- if the views/fans justifies it, you can make it a bit sexier and push any of the special events or programs you have going. I need to do this.\n
- La Sportiva does a good job of this, featuring content from their mountain cup and the giving greenbacks programs, as well as having the link to "become a fan" which is important in case the person is hitting the page for the first time.\n\n(They have more fans than Marmot at 8k; TNF's at 225k)\n\nDon't over-emphasize the number of fans, watch engagement\n\nYou might already have a page even if it's not official\n
- Know your audience; you have to have something compelling to talk about, whether it's a race series or just gear advice, but beware of being too salesy- people will tune you out quickly!\n
- Dovetails with engagement- \n\nKnow your audience; you have to have something compelling to talk about, whether it's a race series or just gear advice, but beware of being too salesy- people will tune you out quickly!\n
- Outreach-\n\nLocal university, Adventist so they can't come run on Saturday races, this is another thing that came from listening to our customers.\n\n\nwe had 8 or 9 races but only one oppt. to run on a sunday and that was our big stage race, so some customers approached us about this one.\n\nthis year's Southern 6 featured a kiddie k which was very successful and will be done again- in fact we're expanding it to do another kiddie k around the august Greenway 5 miler.\n\nwe added various distances in response to feedback from customers.\n
- runintheboonies.org, a little under 200 registered users, many very active, all local or tied in to the races somehow.\n\nposts can range from wed. night trail runs to questions about an upcoming race course.\n\nother users can chime in and answer questions far quicker than we could if we had to answer all these emails- plus its published and public so it stops all the repeat emails.\n\nwe drive people to pages like this for most of the information they need rather than answering each question individually- if someone asks, we'll adjust the description or details, so eventually you have all the questions answered in advance.\n
- runintheboonies.org, a little under 200 registered users, many very active, all local or tied in to the races somehow.\n\nposts can range from wed. night trail runs to questions about an upcoming race course.\n
- runintheboonies.org, a little under 200 registered users, many very active, all local or tied in to the races somehow.\n
- other users can chime in and answer questions far quicker than we could if we had to answer all these emails- plus its published and public so it stops all the repeat emails.\n\nwe drive people to pages like this for most of the information they need rather than answering each question individually- if someone asks, we'll adjust the description or details, so eventually you have all the questions answered in advance\n\nparticipating but not overly splashed everywhere\n
- Video has grown exponentially in recent years, and it's a great way to drive deeper engagement, but it takes a lot of work.\n
- hired Andrew Kornylak\n\ncame from the community \n\nextend beyond one day\n
- play this video \n\nvimeo embedding\n\ntalk about the equal billing for the winner & the stay at home mom\n
- Youtube channel:\n\n-your colors, your logo\n-friends, etc. \n-google login now that they've purchased youtube\n-ubiquitous, so even if you're on something like vimeo you have to duplicate it\n\n\n-you have to be there.\n
- It's important to be noticed, get on the blogs and sites that people are following, if you want to make your investment pay.\n
- It's also important to be top of mind, whether it's an office worker daydreaming about the evening's run or a teenager wondering what this running thing is all about.\n
- Think outside your industry- are there appropriate links to photo sites, business journals, etc? \n\nMake connections with people who would  be interested in what you're doing.\n\n12k views \n\npress release River Gorge mentioned cameras he used\n\ntags on our video mention the equipment\n\n(his blog if it makes sense)\n
- Fun promotions like the 10 days, 10 giveaways where you're not just having to hammer sales all the time, and you give people some sense of fun and excitement.\n\nSo you can be promotional and still engage w/ the customer, you just have to make sharing easy and keep an eye on what makes the market excited about your products.\n
- Quick mention of live chat- something that really can set you apart if you have the right CSR's in place for it.\n
- Quick mention of live chat- something that really can set you apart if you have the right CSR's in place for it.\n
- Lucas is our guy- great job at it\n
- Very quick recap- twitter not for everyone, but something that gets more marketing hype than actual users. \n
- Way too cool 50k. Cool, CA\n\nJohn Anderson in 4th\n\nTwitter- allows real-time updates via text message. You can then hook the rss feed up to a web site, or people can subscribe and be notified via text or on their twitter client.\n\nOnly 65 followers, so it's still something they're not getting too much exposure on.\n
- We did this for last StumpJump race in '09. 2010 will be 10th anniversary so we'll try to promote this more and keep people engaged over a longer period of time.\n\nKeep your eye on it, think of creative ways to use it, make sure you grab your username. Otherwise don't stress too much.\n
- What do you have to talk about? Why would your customers care?\n\nTemper the promotions with the content. 10% promos\n\nHow do you get the information in front of them? Where are they already spending time?\n\nWhat competitors do you have? How can you stay top of mind against those other activities or expenses? \n\nFrom the aspirational to the expert, how do you produce content across all experience levels?\n\nFind the middle way\n
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- What’s too much when posting updates,  or   how do you determine the best frequency?\n\nlike email, you have to stay in front of people but you can't drive them crazy. so, your audience will tell you\n\n\nHow much growth have you seen since you began engaging with customers on line?\n\nwe've always been growing and i attribute that to continually pushing the envelope, watching the market, and adapting to what the customer wants to see\n\nHow long did it take to build to the level you are at for fans on your Facebook page?  \n\nseveral years- something that grows organically- definitely tied to your business' growth, but it's also the little things like posting links on email sends, encouraging staff to use it, engaging by posting events and inviting people to participate.\n
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